Centration of donor trephination in human corneal transplantation

Purpose. To develop and evaluate a new method to quantify centration of the trephined donor cornea relative to the limbus. Methods, After human donor corneas were trephined for penetrating keratoplasty, the remaining corneosc leral discs were stained and subjected to image analysis. The centration of the excised donor cornea relative to the limbus was calculated by measurin g their centroids from the "captured" images. Results. Fifty-two corneo-scl eral discs were analyzed. The average deviation from the centre was 0.32 mm (SD, 0.18 mm). Neither surgeon nor the type of trephine significantly infl uenced the mean centroid deviation. Conclusion. We have developed and evalu ated a method to quantify centration of human donor cornea. In a small seri es, decentration did not correlate significantly with either the surgeon or the trephine.